


You're With Me

by Indig0



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Horrible Things, IPRE Crew - Freeform, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 17:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11583036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indig0/pseuds/Indig0
Summary: Davenport asks Angus to accompany him to search for Lucretia, because the boy detective can sleuth out anyone and anything.  He needs to keep him close for the time being.Davenport will protect his crew at all costs.





	You're With Me

**Author's Note:**

> "Angus, you’re with me. You’re gonna help me sleuth out where Lucretia’s hiding out. Maybe, maybe I can still talk her out of this."

Angus wouldn’t call Davenport a close friend, but they’d always been courteous to each other. Even if all Davenport could say to Angus was his name, Angus had a good idea of what he meant. And he obviously understood everything Angus said. When they all drank the ichor, it… it changed the gnome. Brought him back to himself, of course, but his whole demeanor changed. He was sharper now, more reserved. Angus wondered what it must be like to spend years not knowing who you were, being someone else entirely. He wished there was time to talk to someone, Taako or Magnus maybe, and find out more about Davenport the spaceship captain. But he did at least have the opportunity to go straight to the source.

“Sir… I don’t understand how this all happened!” He understood a little. Most of it, probably.

“There’s no time to explain it all,” Davenport sighed in frustration. “We just have to find Lucretia.”

“I think she’s most likely to be in her private quarters, sir.” He wasn’t too sure about that – Lucretia was smart. She wouldn’t hide in the most obvious place, even as protected as she was by her magic. But it would take a while to search, and give Angus time to think and gather more information. Also, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find her in time. The Relic Wars had been terrible, he remembered knowing that now, but he also didn’t like the sound of cutting off the world from the other planes. There had to be another option. “Sir – what are we going to do?”

Davenport smiled dryly. “Well, maybe you can help us figure something out, Angus.” He didn’t quite meet the boy’s eyes. They hurried through the halls and chambers, and Angus frowned. He wanted to tell Davenport that he and the others couldn’t leave them to die here. But he’d tried that already.

“Sir, do you trust… Lucrecia?”

The captain gave a short, humorless laugh. “…I did. Very much so.”

“I – I know she was just trying to help.”

“Angus, look.” He laughed again, an angry laugh. “She… she may have been trying to help, but that doesn’t change the fact that she took our lives from us. I was – I couldn’t communicate at all, didn’t even know who I was! She completely erased Lup’s existence, do you know what that did to Taako? To Barry? Not to mention everyone else, we’ve all been together for over a hundred years now! We’re all we had, and she took that from us, Angus! Do you understand why this is unforgivable!?”

“I… I understand, sir. I just think… She did say she didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

“Well, it-it did. It did, and now we have to salvage whatever we can and –“ He bit off the end of the sentence, glaring straight ahead.

“You can’t keep running forever, sir.” It was a risk. He saw how the gnome’s hand twitched at his side. This was not the friendly, silly helper, always by Lucrecia’s side. This was a competent adventurer, a tactician with over a century of experience, and Angus was suddenly very much aware of how small his own skillset was.

But he only said, “We’re still searching for a way to beat the Hunger once and for all, Angus. You have to have the right information – clues – to defeat an enemy like this, you know that. And we’re close now, closer than ever.” His voice was so calm and even, and that scared Angus even more.

“Yes, sir,” the boy murmured. “…Sir, we can help you. We can all come up with a plan and fight it together. You – you don’t have to do this alone.”

Davenport stiffened, but when he spoke, his voice was soft and tired. “…Kid, we don’t have time for that anymore. Maybe if I’d been myself, if we’d all remembered everything these past years, we could’ve come up with something good. But here we are.” He glanced back regretfully. “F-for what it’s worth… I’m sorry. Your world’s so much like our home. I… I really wish we could’ve stopped things here, that we could stay here. But it’s too late now.”

“We can still try, sir,” Angus said in a small voice. “I’m not ready to give up yet. This is my home. It – it’s been your home too. And I know you haven’t been yourself for most of that time, but it can still be your home! Even if you lost your old home – your family and friends and everything – you’ve got a new family now, and we’ll stick with you and help you. Sir, we’ll fight for you, all of us. Just – please. Fight for us, too.”

The gnome stopped, his head hanging. “…I didn’t really lose my old home,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t really my home. Didn’t have a family, friends, any life to speak of outside the Institute. That’s all I had. And those six – they’re my family. They’re all I’ve got, all that matters to me, do you understand that, Angus?” He spun to face Angus, and his face was a mess of determination and tears.

“…I do, sir,” Angus said quietly. “I understand, because they’re all I’ve got, too. I didn’t leave behind much when I joined the Bureau. I’ve got nothing to go back to. This has been the most wonderful part of my life, and… and all of you have become my family, too. You too, sir. You – gosh, you just know so much, you’ve seen so much, there’s so much I want to learn from you! I’ll bet you know more than anybody in this whole world, and I want to get to know you, and to hear about everything. Please, sir. You haven’t lost everything. We can find a way to fix this.”

Angus stuck out his hand pleadingly. Davenport stared at it, eyes glazed over, for a long moment. Then he gave a soft chuckle that echoed throughout the empty chamber deep within the Bureau.

“I guess all we can do is try,” he muttered in a raspy voice. He clasped Angus’s hand firmly.

“Yes! Sir, we can do this together, I know we can, thank you sir! We won’t let you down.”

“…But we have to hurry. We don’t have any time to waste.”

“You’re right.” Angus turned back the way they’d come. “I think we should start by –“

The boy collapsed to the floor, his eyes open but sightless. His breathing was shallow but regular. Davenport sighed.

“Sorry, kid. I really wish this could’ve been different. But we have to survive. You’d do the same thing, in my shoes.”

Having accomplished what he set out to do, the captain turned and hurried off to find Lucretia. They had to survive. And he’d make sure they did, at any cost.


End file.
